The Disappearance of Harry Potter
by prairiebuilding
Summary: Harry Potter disappears suddenly, wanting to leave behind the wizarding world. One person knows how to find him and vows to destroy him if she does.
1. Section 1

Author note: Usual disclaimer about owning content. My first HP fanfic. I'd appreciate feedback. Please note that I am not trying to recapture a Rowling-esque style. I'm shamelessly exploiting her literary creations. Enjoy.

By all appearances, Harry Potter had settled into what, for many people in the wizarding world, seemed to be the job that was meant for him and would always be meant for him. That job was the Headmaster of Hogwarts. Harry was the youngest Headmaster ever, having been chosen for the position just two years after completing his own schooling.

After the trials he passed through fighting and finally defeating Voldemort (whom people were just able to name by his proper name), many considered that he possessed all of the requisite skills for such a post. He had mastered some of the most complex spells known to magic. His acquaintance with the Dark Arts was unparalleled. He had, of course, witnessed the deaths of friends like Dumbledore and Ron Weasley. Surely that changed a person forever. Harry Potter, through all of his trials, had become not only strong, but wise.

All of the voices that voiced their opinions throughout the wizarding world could not be entirely wrong about Harry Potter. Surely there was some truth to the idea that Harry Potter was just the kind of exceptional person worthy of having such an exceptional honor bestowed on him. In fact, during his first year as Headmaster, he had even seemed like something of a natural, handling all of the complicated matters of running a complicated school like Hogwarts with intelligence, forbearance, even a touch of humor.

After that first year, however, Harry Potter vacated the position. But it wasn't just the fact that he vacated the position that shocked everyone who heard the news. What shocked people was that Harry Potter had disappeared completely. The wizarding world's brightest light had simply vanished.

Many people wondered if some spell had gone awry. Perhaps a portal had opened in an unexpected place. Perhaps a slightly more ferocious than anticipated demon had been summoned from the beyond. Some traumatized voices began to whisper of He-who-cannot-be-named and his Death Eaters again. Searches were conducted; elaborate inquires held. Disreputable practices that verged on being dangerous dark arts were performed. Despite the flurry of activity, however, no one could find Harry Potter.

A new Headmaster had to be found of course. The most likely candidate was Harry Potter's friend, Hermione Granger. Hermione, however, had buried herself away in a musty and obscure corner of the Ministry of Magic performing an even more musty and obscure job. She wanted to hear nothing of Headmasters and Hogwarts; and she certainly wanted to hear nothing of Harry Potter.

Finally, Draco Malfoy, who had since changed his name to Charles Fenix, having cast off that distinguished but disgusting name of Malfoy, was chosen for the job. The new Draco, or rather Charles, assumed the vacant post with an earnest feeling of loss over the former Headmaster who had become his friend and companion. Many people later said that he never shook off that melancholy look that characterized him in those early days.

Unlike Charles Fenix, however, the rest of the wizarding world soon forgot about Harry Potter and accepted his disappearance as a matter of course. Yes, everyone did what, only a year ago, had been unthinkable in consigning Harry Potter to some obscure part of their memory. Of course, it would be more precise to say that nearly everyone forgot about Harry Potter. One person did not and could not forget. This person was none other than Hermione Granger. She could never forgive Harry for his responsibility in Ron's death.

Not only was Hermione one of the few people who did not forget about Harry Potter, she was perhaps the only person who knew how to find him. She knew how to find him, not because she knew where he was, but because she could cast a spell to locate him by using the lock of his hair that she possessed. The lock was secreted away in Hermione's ramshackle flat on a ramshackle street in London. She had hidden what, after his disappearance, had become an invaluable article in an old Bible that her Muggle parents had given to her (Hermione knew that no right-minded wizard would ever open such a queer book as it had no runes, inscriptions, or spells cast on it; it was just a plain book with words that did not narrate themselves, create pictures as you read along, or any of the other gimmicks and gags that wizards used to distract them from the tedium of reading).

Hermione knew how to find Harry Potter but wouldn't do so until the time was right, until he had something she could take from him, just as he had taken from her. When that time came, she would cast her finding spell with the lock of hair. Harry Potter would not be able to run far enough away to escape the effects of such a spell.


	2. Section 2

When Harry Potter turned his back on Hogwarts and the world of magic, he knew exactly where he intended to go. In fact, the choice of a destination was not very pressing. He was more preoccupied with why he was leaving than anything else. Try as he might, Harry Potter did not fully understand the feeling that compelled him to the outlying suburbs, to Number Four Privet Drive. But standing there, in front of those cautious brick row houses, brought a great sense of relief to him.

The Dursleys no longer lived there of course. With so much attention paid to Harry Potter, they had found it convenient to quietly relocate. Harry knew that they had moved to the United States. He had a spy of sorts follow them there. Perhaps it was this first act as the new Headmaster of Hogwarts, with access to all kinds of occulted powers and services, to know where the Dursleys were going, that hinted at the inevitability of his current situation.

They had moved to Chicago and, somewhat perversely, moved to the suburbs and lived, in what seemed to Harry, based on the spy's reports, to be the American equivalent of the bland featureless British house he stood in front of now. Despite its vulgar and plain exterior, Harry longed to go inside the house. He longed to smell the smells of breakfast (smells he often had to make); he longed to hear his Uncle Vernon grunt over the Times at the kitchen table and his Aunt Petunia coo over her toast and tea like a pigeon. He even longed to see Dudley, who, according to his spy, had slimmed up and became a regular young man attending university in America.

Of course, Harry could go right inside if he wanted to. He had his father's invisibility cloak folded up very precisely in his suitcase. He could put on the cloak and go inside. If the mood seized him, he could take his wand, which was folded up inside the cloak, and vanquish the people living there. Then he, Harry Potter, could become the new owner of Number Four Privet Drive. But to get the cloak and the wand would require unpacking the layers of Muggle clothing carefully packed around them and sitting in the back of the taxi that idled in the street. To insert himself into Number Four Privet Drive would require using magic, which Harry had vowed not to do.

In fact, he had performed four acts of magic before packing away his cloak and wand. He knew that he would need money to get on in the world, the Muggle-world that is. This required going to Gringott's Bank and changing his wizarding money into Muggle money. But getting into Gringott's without being seen required a very complicated shape-shifting spell that could not easily be detected. A little thought produced the proper spell and the proper anonymous appearance that Harry Potter would require.

The Goblin clerks who staffed the bank were famous for their discretion. When Harry Potter revealed himself to the hairy eared and wobbling clerk, he nodded silently and proceeded to change Harry Potter's money into Muggle money. In spite of this famous discretion on the part of Gringott's clerks, Harry felt it necessary to erase to clerk's memory of the transaction. This was the second spell.

Harry reassumed his disguise and went to his second destination, perhaps the most unlikely of places for someone trying to evade detection in the wizarding world. Nonetheless, the almost spectral looking man who stood had called on Mr. Arthur Weasley about a possible misues of an artefact he witnessed the other day morphed into the young man whose face and features Mr. Weasley knew all too well.

Upon seeing Harry Potter materialize in his office, Mr. Weasley slumped down in his chair and sighed.

"Mr. Weasley," Harry said, before his old friend's father could speak, "I'm terribly sorry to bother you."

"You're not bothering me, Harry." Mr. Weasley said this with a smile, and almost seemed to lift him up out of his initial despondency. There was, however, none of the good cheer and affability that Harry remembered. Mr. Weasley, despite everything, seemed braced for something extremely unpleasant.

"I have a favor to ask of you. It's a strange favor. That's the reason for the disguise, you see. And I can't really explain everything. But I just need you to trust me."

"What is it, Harry? Is something wrong at Hogwarts?" Now the professional man had taken hold of Mr. Weasley, pushing aside the man with a personal life.

Harry, for his part, blinked at the word Hogwarts, as if not fully understanding what the word meant anymore. "Hogwarts? No. It's fine. Everything there is fine. Mr. Weasley, I need information."

"What kind of information?" Mr. Weasley couldn't imagine what kind of information he had access to that Harry Potter, who could have called up any head figure in the Ministry for information about…anything at all, did not.

"Information about Muggles. Their world. Particularly how they travel. What kinds of documents do they use? I don't even know where the airport is!" Harry, of course, knew all kind of things about the Muggle world that Mr. Weasley didn't. But he had never been on a trip, never sat in an airplane.

Now even the professional man was no longer sitting there. Mr. Weasley's passion, unbridled enthusiasm even, took possession of him. He took out large files with wild, complicated diagrams and copious notes trying to explain every facet of Muggle travel. Another file contained confiscated Muggle documents of all shapes and sizes. To Harry's eyes, the prospect of ever leaving London seemed distant at best.

Deciding on an alias, however, proved to be the first obstacle. In his enthusiasm, Mr. Weasley kept coming up with names like Derrick Dragon or Mr. Samson Smog. Harry wanted a nice, normal name that wouldn't attract any attention. "How about Henry Tinker," Mr. Weasley asked.

Harry sounded it to himself. "Yes, that sounds nice. Let's do that." With the name settled, Harry broached the biggest obstacle first and set about convincing Mr. Weasley that he needed a visa--a student visa--so that he could say in the United States for several months at least.

Suddenly the different layers of Mr. Weasley folded back into place as suspicions led to questions that became concerns. "A visa, Harry? That will be very tricky to pull off, very tricky indeed. The spells to alter the data stored in Muggle computers are very challenging stuff. We're just figuring out how to manipulate the Internet. And the Muggles have been using that for years now. There will be firewalls and encryption and, well, all kinds of obstacles."

To Harry, who really knew very little about computers, having always been barred from Dudley's, the feat really did sound complicated, and treacherous, as if he would have to navigate some hideous dungeon and face grim foes in the process.

"I'll call in Justus Brockton. He knows everything that the Muggles call cutting-edge. Really knows his stuff. He was in Percy's year, actually. I think his mother was a Muggle. No wait...maybe tha was someone else. "

"No, Mr. Weasley. No one else can handle this matter. I need you to do it."

"Fine, Harry. I'll try. But I'll need to go ask Justus some hypothetical questions just to clear a few things up. Can you wait?"

"Yes, I will."

Mr. Weasley was gone for half an hour. When he came back he seemed triumphant. "Well that Justus really is a genius. He's been working on a quick fix to our problems with Muggle computers and he let me in on the secret. So, let's get to work"

Mr. Weasley produced a strange looking, highly antiquated computer from a cabinet and sat in on the desk, it was a beige flat box with brown keys and a tiny screen. A cursor blinked stupidly back at Harry's skeptical eyes. This computer hardly looked up to the task. But Mr. Weasley cast the spell Justus Brockton taught him and soon they were creating a fictional identity for one Mr. Henry Tinker in the United States' immigration records. Then they manipulated the airline records to put Harry on a flight to Chicago the next day.

After that, they used rearranging spells to doctor a recently obtained airline ticket, the letters dancing back and forth to form new names and dates for the newly created Henry Tinker. Mr. Weasley was enthralled as he took Harry's picture with a instant camera, cut down the picture to size and whisked it into a crimson red passport with a simple spell.

With all of this work accomplished, Mr. Weasley sat back feeling very satisfied. He felt he really knew the ins and outs of airline flight now, even though he still didn't know how the planes stayed up in the air. Yet he was troubled by these preparations and began to feel guilty about not pressing Harry to explain. Finally, he resolved to ask, "Harry, do you want to tell me why you're doing all of this? Do you need any help? Is something wrong?"

Harry looked sadly at Mr. Weasley. He was the only member of the Weasley family who still seemed to reserve some fond feeling for him after Ron's death. To the others, Harry had become a kind of monster, even, and worst of all, to Jenny, whom Harry had not seen in over a year. But Mr. Weasley had been the one to find him after his final battle with Voldemort, huddled over Ron's twisted frame. Mr. Weasley had comforted Harry as he held Ron, probably choking back his own grief to console the friend of his dead son. Mr. Weasley had told him, even in the face of his family's recriminations, that Harry could always come to him for help.

Harry did not want to mistrust Mr. Weasley; but he did not want to be found. So, he struck a middle course and confided to Mr. Weasley everything. He revealed to his dead friend's father feelings that could barely be made into words they were so fresh and strange to Harry.

When he was done, Mr. Weasley said, "It's alright, Harry. Everything will work out."

Harry nodded, stood up, and said, "I hope so, Mr. Weasley. And thanks for listening to me. Really. I'm terribly sorry that I have to do this." With a flash of light from his wand, Harry cast a memory-erasing spell, leaving Mr. Weasley at his desk senseless and utterly confused about where the last two hours had gone.

The sleepless night Harry spent in a cheap London hostel hadn't cleared the guilt he felt over not trusting Mr. Weasley. The only thing that worked was the shrill horn from the taxi that idled behind him and the driver shouting out, "Yeh better get goin' or yeh'll be late." Harry turned away from Number Four Privet Drive and got into the taxi that took him to Heathrow to board his evening flight to Chicago and to the Dursleys whom Harry was oddly excited to see.


End file.
